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By: Darren Travis on Thu May 22, 2008

A home isn’t just windows and a frame. One of the best ways to spruce up your house during these summer months and to give your home a new look that will take you throughout a dreary winter is to paint it. But don’t expect it to be as easy as all that sounds. No, to get a lively paint job that will improve the look of your home, increase it’s re-sale value, and make you feel better about it, it’s going to take some hard work and some smarts, not to mention a lot of time and patience.

There are two types of paint – acrylic or water-based paint, and alkyd or oil-based paint (which will occasionally be referred to as solvent paint). Both types of paints are commonly used in domestic painting, but as time has gone on, it appears that acrylic is becoming the preferred choice for home painters, and may soon replace all alkyd paints as the de facto choice. Professional painters will continue using alkyd paints, because of the protective finish and longer life they offer.

Cleaning
It doesn’t matter what you’re painting, whether it’s the living room wall or your house’s façade, you always have to clean the surface prior to priming and painting. Inside walls and surfaces are best cleaned using a mild mixture of soap and water. If you’re cleaning an outside wall, you’ll probably want to use a soft britle brush or use a pressure washer (if it’s particularly nasty). Washing the surface with a bleach chlorine mixture (1 part chlorine bleach, 3 parts water) will prevent the development of mildew and mold.

After cleaning, take a look at the surface for any bumps, rises, gaps, cracks or other irregularities that will affect your paint job. Gaps and cracks can be filled with caulk, and you should hammer in any nail-heads, or else cover them with plaster.

Interior Preparation
Prior to painting, you should remove all furniture, ornaments, and other obstructions. Anything such as chandeliers, light fixtures, radiators, as well as the floor or carpet should be covered with plastic or a painter’s canvas, which is available at all painting and home improvement stores.
Remove any hardware from the painting surface – light switches, outlet covers, door handles, cabinet knobs, and so forth.

Scrape flaking paint off and use a medium grit sand paper to sand the area. If paint has pulled away from an area, leaving the bare wall expose, apply joint compound. Corner cracks and cracks on moldings can be re-caulked. Use spackling compound to fill in nail holes, and sand over it with that same medium grit sandpaper once it’s dried. It’s important to inspect your trim for any rot that resulted from moisture getting in. If there is, you can dig the rot out and use wood filler to replace it, once again sanding with medium grit sandpaper afterwards.


Exterior Preparation
Remove any items that may obstruct you and make painting more difficult – rain spouts, gutters, light fixtures, window shutters and doors. If you’re painting any of these items, paint them prior to replacing them.

Inspect all of the wooden surfaces on the exterior of your home, and caulk joints and seams if needed. Any cracks should also be caulked. Remove old caulk from cracks that might have been caulked previously, and now need to be re-caulked. Keep an eye for rust from nail heads. If you find rust, use a rust inhibiting primer to touch up nail heads and prevent further rust bleed. (Note that latex plain does occasionally cause rusting, so if you’re using latex paint, you should have some rust inhibiting primer.)

After applying the primer, counter-sink the affected nails into the surface and caulk the resulting depressions with putty or exterior spackling compound. Smooth afterwards, scrape away any peeling paint, and use an exterior wood filling compound to replace rotten wood.


I'll cover more in my future articles on painting your house this summer - stay tuned!